Starship Asterisk*

I wonder what the night (?) sky would look like to an imaginary resident of a planet circling one of those stars in that cluster.

Regards,

Bill Lee

Can somebody explain why there will only be 14 transits in the 21st century. Seems to me that every time Mercury goes around the sun that it would be visible against the sun as a backdrop. I cannot envision the geometry that would limit that to only 14 in 100 years. Mercury's orbit doesn't lie on t...

Can somebody explain why there will only be 14 transits in the 21st century. Seems to me that every time Mercury goes around the sun that it would be visible against the sun as a backdrop. I cannot envision the geometry that would limit that to only 14 in 100 years.

Something strange with this picture. Somebody please explain. The picture looks like, and the caption says "...the full moon shining on with beautiful iridescent clouds at sunset." but the full moon can NOT be in a picture of a "sunset"! The moon is full when it is opposite the ...

Something strange with this picture. Somebody please explain. The picture looks like, and the caption says "...the full moon shining on with beautiful iridescent clouds at sunset." but the full moon can NOT be in a picture of a "sunset"! The moon is full when it is opposite the s...

The cause of the glory is still being researched and is reflect, refract, and diffract sunlight backwards towards the Sun.

Isn't this the same physics/geometry as a rainbow?

R/

Bill Lee

The description says "analogous to the bow wave of a boat moving through water or a plane traveling at supersonic speed."

A plane need not be traveling at "supersonic speed" to create a bow wave.

Somebody needs to tell the NASA illustrator who produced the neat little video that the moon doesn't move south to north. Check out the video at about the 29-30 second mark.

What would the night sky look like on a planet around a sun within a cluster like that? Would there even BE a "night sky"?

Thank you Ann for the enlightening explanation of parallax and proper motion, as well as spectra and brightnesses. I sorta knew this stuff, but to have it presented in relation to a beautiful image of the nebula surrounding a cluster I've seen through my little telescope in the backyard really brin...

Warning : Newbie alert! I am NOT an astonomer or anything! But I enjoy the fantastic images in the APOD. I have gathered a large number of them and use them for my screen background. Question: How do you distinguish stars referenced in an image like the one today (Rosette Nebula) from foreground st...